It's a big week for sport in the US with the NBA finals, the Formula One grand prix at Indianapolis and, of course, the US Open golf.

But while the local papers here in Pittsburgh are building towards what is expected to be one of the toughest US Opens in its long history, it is obvious that this is not the only sport capturing the imagination.

The Pittsburgh Tribune Review, for instance, devotes the whole of its front page of the sports section to a picture of Dale Earnhardt Jr, the Nascar motor racing driver, who is about to announce a move to a new team. And if you thought this might lead into a piece leading up to this weekend's Formula One grand prix, then think again.

Formula One barely scratches the surface here, although Lewis Hamilton's victory in Canada last weekend led USA Today to question why it is that motor sport in the States does not have any black drivers of their own. Like Tiger Woods, it looks as if Hamilton's story could well transcend his sport.

Surprisingly the NBA finals between San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Cavaliers is proving a very low-key affair. On Tuesday, San Antonio took a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, but these teams are so far below the radar that, according to USA Today, the television ratings are 30 per cent down on the previous year. They were not helped, the paper said, by Sunday evening's screening of the final episode of The Sopranos.

But if the basketball is passing relatively unnoticed, the baseball is up and running and grabbing the lion's share of coverage. Both the Tribune and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette devoted plenty of space to the American form of rounders, with the Tribune giving it six pages, compared to five for the golf. USA Today waded in with three pages of its own, but also found space (almost a full page) for a feature on Pennsylvania's favourite son - one Arnold Palmer. What would they do without Arnie?

Tiger Woods is going for his 13th major championship, just 11 years after he turned professional, and he receives the kind of coverage we have come to expect in all of the papers. Tiger speaks and the world sits up.

However, it is Phil Mickelson's left wrist that is exercising minds here. Lefty injured it in practice a few weeks' ago and, despite an anti-inflammatory injection, he doesn't know if he'll last the four days, particularly with Oakmont's bone-jarring rough. "Lefty's wrist watch" is how the Tribune highlights its piece. The Gazette, meanwhile, predicts that Tiger "Is primed to seize title". Well there's a surprise.